unlawfully had it power and opportunity for those first Motions and Inclinations are necessary and unavoidable arising from the frame and constitution of our Nature and the Mechanism of our Body Blood and Spirits so that we can no more help or prevent them than we can the senses of Pain and Pleasure or the Appetites of Thirst or Hunger or the Motions and Impressions of outward Objects made upon our Senses and therefore they are not simply evil but good in themselves so far as they are Natural and intended by God to serve the good of the World and of particular Persons and the wise ends of Providence but as they are irregular and inordinate excessive and immoderate and destroy those ends for which God intended them so far they are sinful and when any of those Natural Appetites or Sensual Inclinations grow too strong and unruly and are not kept under the government of Reason or within the bounds of Vertue and Religion then they carry Men to all loosness and wickedness and make them commit Sin and Uncleanness with greediness A good Man may with St. Paul be very sensible and complain of this body of sin and of death and of the law of sin that is in his members of many irregular Appetites and undue Passions and weak and foolish imaginations and unreasonable desires and inclinations of too quick gusts of Sensual things and too much deadness of Spiritual of having too many thoughts and designs for Earthly and present things and too little zeal and affection for things Heavenly that are a thousand times more valuable These are imperfections that are in the best of us and we see that they are so and are very sensible and complain of them but yet we cannot wholly avoid them but after all our thoughts and all our care they still return upon us and the Flesh will lust against the Spirit and there will be a perpetual war and struggle between them but if the Spirit do so far prevail by the helps of Grace and considerations of Religion that it do never yield to any wilful Sin it shall then be rewarded as a Conquerour which though it did not wholly subdue and drive out that homebred enemy yet kept it alwayes under and made it submit to its Government and not keep up an open Rebellion against it Of this I have largely discoursed in the Third Section of the Third Chapter I proceed now to those Sins which are known wilful and presumptuous habitual and reigning in us any one of which is inconsistent with a good State and excludes us out of Gods Favour here and Heaven hereafter such as the Psalmist in the forequoted place prayes against Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins lest they get the dominion over me All known and wilful Sins are presumptuous as being done in defiance of a Divine Authority that we know has forbid them and in contempt of God and his Laws to whom we owe all Honour and Obedience and notwithstanding all those threatnings and severe punishments that God has denounced against them He that sins wilfully after he has received the knowledge of the truth of these things there remains nothing for him but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries This is despising the Law of God thus wittingly and wilfully to break it and is sinning with a high hand and a most presumptuous boldness when we choose to do that which we know is most highly displeasing to Heaven and which God has laid all the obligations he possibly can upon us not to do When any such Sin gets dominion over us so that it becomes customary and habitual to us it makes us the Devils slaves and captives at his Will and shows that he is our Master and that we are the Servants of Sin and overcome by that and brought in bondage to it that it prevails upon our Minds above all the Power of Reason and Principles of Religion and that we choose it above all the great things of Heaven and another World that Religion offers to us and think it more desirable than any of those and had rather gratifie a paltry Lust and a foolish Inclination than save our Souls and have all the favour of God that we prefer it before any other good and let it have the ascendant in our Love and Affections above all other things for it is utterly inconsistent with any Love of God or any due regard to him and banishes all Principles of Religion out of our Minds and destroyes all sincerity and uprightness of Heart towards God and abandons us to a state of enmity with him and everlasting destruction hereafter This I have shown is true of every wilful and chosen and known Sin I shall now from the distinction I have given you of these Sins from those of Infirmity Ignorance and Inadvertency make the following Inferences and Remarks 1. That those Sins of Infirmity are to be Repented of i. e. we are to be sorry for them and pray God to forgive them Though they do not destroy our good state nor deprive us of Gods Favour here or Heaven hereafter yet they are such as are to be matter of Trouble and Sorrow and Humiliation to us and we are dayly to pray God to forgive us our Trespasses as Christ has taught us in the Lords Prayer and the Psalmist in the place before mentioned prayes God to cleanse him from his secret faults as well as to keep him back from presumptuous Sins For 2. These are true and proper Sins and though they are not charged upon us to our Condemnation yet this is by the great Favour and Mercy of God and by Vertue of the Gracious Covenant made in Christ with Mankind for otherwise God in Rigour and Justice might punish and condemn us for them The Papists hold a distinction between Sins Mortal and Venial in their own Nature i. e. that some Sins are in themselves damnable and others not which the Protestants have generally opposed for this Reason because all Sin is in it self Mortal and in its own Nature deserves Death as being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a breach and transgression of a Divine Law whose sanction is Death but it is pardonable only by Gods Mercy on the account of its circumstances which make it more excusable with a good and merciful God but that it is not of it self venial or so little as not to deserve Punishment they prove from hence that we are bound to pray God to forgive it Now it is pure Grace and Favour for God to forgive and what he is not obliged to and if he is not obliged to pardon it he may punish it were it not for his Mercy and Goodness and the Gracious Covenant he has made with us in the Gospel This should therefore 3. Make us very sensible of Gods infinite Mercy and kind dealing with us by the Covenant of Grace How many innumerable Sins and
or Happiness nor be freed from Sin and Misery nor can a Holy and Wise God be reconciled to him or forgive him Upon all these accounts we see his Repentance is absolutely necessary to entitle him to Pardon and Salvation and without this he must certainly and unavoidably perish Now 8. This absolute necessity of it is a strong and powerful Argument to perswade us to it Whilst Men have any hopes of escaping with their Sins this with the pleasures and temptations of them will encourage them to persist in them and to enjoy their Lusts and their Liberties which they have made very hard and uneasie to deny themselves but when they find they must either do this or else necessarily perish for ever this if any thing will prevail upon Men who believe and consider the dreadful horrour of Everlasting Damnation Now the absolute necessity of Repentance is as plain by the Gospel as the power and validity of it We are as much assured that without it we shall be damned as we shall be saved with it Now this above all commends a Medicine to us that it will cure us if we use it but that we shall dye if we do not however bitter and unpalatable it may be however it may disorder us while it is working upon us and however painful the operation may be yet if we must lose our Lives without it this will make us choose and endure it and go through with it Though we must cut off a Right-hand yet if the Gangrene will kill us if we do not we shall submit to it Though it be very painful to part with our Lusts and our beloved Sins yet since we must be damned if we do not this will bring us to it If a Man must sink unless he throwes away his richest lading and discharges himself of his weighty treasure he will lose that rather than his Life and if he be not mad he will for the same reason cast away his Sins rather than his Soul No Man disputes this when he is brought into such a necessity such a strait and exigency as to be thus tryed Now Christ has by the Gospel put this necessity upon us either Repent and leave your Sins or perish with them There is no avoiding this no possibility to prevent it any way and therefore when there is but one thing to be done and such a necessity for doing it one would think it should do it self but this is a necessity of Reason of Choice of Thought of Deliberation that requires our Minds to think of it and consider it or else it will not work upon us and therefore we can throw off the force and power of it by not thinking or not considering of it but if we did as we ought duly consider of it it would have an irresistible force and power upon us and no Man could hinder the effect of it but he that will shut his eyes and not see a precipice may fall down it and the greatest necessity of avoiding any danger is took off by not heeding or not being sensible of it though it be never the less great in it self for all that and the necessity would work upon any but those who are heedless and inconsiderate Sad is the state and condition of those under the Gospel who live in a state of Sin and Impenitence or in the habit of any unrepented Sin they are under as absolute a sentence of condemnation as if the great Judge had pronounced it upon them and bid them Go ye cursed Whilst they continue such there is no more hopes of Mercy for them than for the damned themselves Their state indeed is not as unalterable as the others is and this is the only difference for they are otherwise as much Children of Wrath as they They are not bound in chains of darkness nor confined to this state by an irreversible Judgment but they are fettered to their Sins and to their state by their own choice and till they break those bonds and get free from them they can never come out of that sad condition which should make every impenitent Sinner tremble and seriously bethink himself what a sad state and condition he is in what a doom hangs over his head and how near his steps take hold of Death how he walks upon the brink of Hell and Damnation and the least fatal accident or sudden death does irrecoverably throw him in without Redemption which should make his Heart tremble and his Blood chill and his Hair stand an end if he considered it as he ought Let him therefore resolve to snatch himself out of the fire and speedily recover himself from the jaws of Death Repentance alone can do this and this he should set about immediately and be perswaded to it by those powerful Motives and Arguments which the Gospel and Christianity proposes and which I have from thence offered to him I shall subjoyn to these another Motive or Exhortation to Repentance which I cannot call so properly Evangelical and peculiar to the Gospel but what arises from both Nature and Reason and some Gospel Considerations mixt together and complicated with those and that is the Consideration of Death and our being made ready and prepared for it by Repentance and therefore that nothing else can free us from the fears and terrors of it SECT VI. Exhortation to Repentance as a Preparation for Death or in order to make us ready to dye THE last Motive then I shall propose to Repentance is this that nothing else can prepare and make us ready and fit to dye and therefore nothing else can take off the fear and terror of Death to which in all reason we must otherwise be exposed and so all our life time subject to bondage as the Scripture speaks Dye we know we must in a little while and there is none so foolishly Sceptical as to deny or disbelieve this and to hope to escape the Grave where he has seen all his Fore-fathers laid before him and which is the common lot or fate of every Mortal There is nothing therefore more concerns us while we live than to be alwayes ready and prepared to dye this should be our great work and business if we considered the true end of living or understood the mighty consequence of dying as Religion represents them both to us and he that is not so foolish as to think he shall never dye should above all things take care so to live that he may be alwayes ready to dye and of the two 't is a greater folly to think we shall dye and not prepare for it than to think we shall not dye at all This it is then which a wise Man is concerned to do all his Life to be ready and prepared for Death which he knows will certainly come and because it is uncertain when it will come therefore to be alwayes ready and alwayes provided for it There is so much danger and hazard not to do this
Grace and Goodness tho' they have not already attained neither are already perfect as the Apostle speaks of himself Phil. 3.12 yet they are alwayes safe and alwayes ready for the coming of the Son of Man and their whole Life is a most sure a most comfortable preparation for Death But these are very few I doubt not only to the general number of Mankind but even to good Men for most of the good Men we read of in Scripture were some time or other guilty of great and wilful Faults as Noah and Abraham and David and St. Peter and St. Paul and Mary Magdalene and whilst they were so and before they had recovered themselves by Repentance I cannot but think them in a bad state for Mens states are not fixt and certain in this Life but are alterable and changed according to their outward actions and the inward temper of their Minds and when ever a wilful and a known Sin breaks the course of Vertue and destroys the habit of Goodness in their Souls it breaks their good state and destroys their comfortable condition As when a Disease strikes the Vitals of our Body and overcomes the Strength and Health of our Constitution unless we get it off it will certainly bring Death along with it God indeed has prescribed us a certain Remedy and an infallible Cure for all Mortal Sins and the greatest Spiritual Maladies and Diseases that would otherwise destroy us and bring Death upon us and that is Repentance which for the sake of Christ and his Merits and by the Mercy and Promise of God shall recover us out of that miserable and mortal state into which every wilful Sin had cast us This shall set us right again in the Court of Heaven where we were cast and condemned before and this shall bring us to a state of Life and Grace who were before struck with the sentence of Death And blessed be God who has thus graciously provided for poor and otherwise lost Sinners by Jesus Christ But Repentance alas though it be a sure Remedy yet is not so easie a one as we imagine 't is a very bitter dose that must not only go down very unpleasantly but must work strongly and powerfully upon our Minds it must not only make us sick and sorrowful contrite and troubled at the very Heart for every Transgression but it must purge out of our Souls every Sin and carry off every vile Lust and wicked Inclination It must not only work upon the peccant humours and so put the Soul into great trouble and disorder but it must perfectly heal and cure it and to do that it must take away the root of the disease it must search to the bottom of the Heart it must touch us to the quick in the tenderest part of us in the most darling Sin and most beloved Lust and it must cut and launce so deep that no secret corruption remain within and no fomes Morbi be left behind In a word it must perfectly cure the Soul and whatever disease it laboured under it must quite remove it so that it never return again upon it for 't is but a palliating a counterfeit or an imperfect cure till this be done And till the Mind be perfectly restored and amended and made better it has not truly repented and therefore the Scripture requires in Repentance not only a broken Heart which is the most significant phrase in the World for the deepest trouble of Mind for our past Sins but it requires a new Heart and a new Soul and a new Creature and a new Man to make up true Repentance and not only that we be renewed in the Spirit of our Minds but that we bring forth fruits worthy of Repentance and that we turn from every evil way and leave and forsake every Sin that we have ever been guilty of as I have more largely shown before We must do all this before we can be said truly to Repent and before we can have any good grounds to expect Pardon of any wilful Sin we ever committed in our whole lives we must thus Repent of it And though we are as sure of forgiveness if we do so as if we had never committed it which is the greatest favour in the World yet how will a poor penitent be alwayes afraid that he has not been sufficiently sorrowful and fully repented of his Sins how will his former Guilt affright him when it stares him in the face and how will the sad load of all his Sins lye heavy upon his Conscience when he is brought to a due sense of them and how must he be contented to lose a great deal of that comfort in his Mind here though he may be safe hereafter and though his Repentance may put him into a good condition yet it will make his Heart sorrowful and the remembrance of his Sins will make it often bleed afresh within him And when he looks back upon his past danger he must tremble at it tho' he has reason to hope he has escaped it and it must keep him alwayes humble and not over-confident of himself and though he has his Pardon in his hand yet he must still look upon it with tears in his eyes Nothing can truly satisfie a Man that he has repented of his Sins but that he has left them out of Religious Grounds and Principles and has had so much tryal of himself as to know he would not commit them though he were in the same circumstances and temptations that he was in before And thus when a bad Man is become a good one when he that was careless and irreligious is become pious and devout when he that was vitious and debauch'd is become sober and vertuous when he that was unjust becomes just and righteous and besides restitution for all past injustice would not commit one act of it to gain all the World when he that stole steals no more and he that was given to drunkenness or uncleanness or any other Sin wholly leaves and forsakes it and is brought by Religion to be quite another Man than he was before then and not till then is his Repentance such as may make him hope for Pardon when he lives and prepare him to dye with comfort For to proceed a little further in this great concern to make a Soul fit and ready for its immediate entering upon another state it must have these two qualifications at that time 1. It must be thoroughly purged from every Vitious Habit or else it is neither meet to be partaker of the inheritance of the Saints in light nor capable of the Pure and Spiritual and Heavenly Happiness As the Tree falls so it lyes sayes the Wise Man Ecclesiastes 11.3 And the same habit and temper as to the main which the Soul carries out of this World will abide with it in the other If any one habitual Wickedness remain upon it or the love of any one Sin be so rooted in it that if it lived
like melancholly persons who read of such grievous diseases fancy immediately that they have them themselves and that such and such symptoms are already upon them If we cannot therefore assure all Persons of Pardon for all manner of Sins however great or however circumstantiated upon their true Repentance of them it will very much take off from the encouragements to this Duty and by taking off Mens hopes in many cases and shutting the door of Mercy against them hinder them from performing this Duty and make them if not act desperately and madly as Men without hopes generally do yet throw them into a comfortless and despairing condition and overwhelm them with remediless sorrow and trouble The general scope and design of the Gospel seems to be to remove all this To preach good tidings unto the meek to bind up the broken-hearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound to comfort them that mourn Isa 61.1 To call those to come to Christ who are weary and heavy laden by reason of their Sins with a promise that he will give them rest Matth. 11.28 To preach Repentance and remission of sins in his name among all nations Luke 24.47 without excluding any Persons or excepting any Sins whatsoever to proclaim a general Amnesty and Act of Pardon to all who Repent and come in to the Gospel Had there been an exception as to a more notorious Traytor to any one though a single Sin which Mankind had been like to fall into this would have abated both from the Goodness of God and the Comfort of Men when he should be represented as implacable in some cases and never to be appeased and the other should be left in such danger and hazard that if they fell into some Sins which it was very possible for them to do that then there should be no hopes nor no means of recovery for them God I doubt not is more merciful and Mankind not so miserable as to have any Sin whatever utterly unpardonable which is Repented of but as our Saviour sayes All manner of Sin and Blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men Matth. 12.31 And as Isaiah told the Jews of old and it is not less so under the Gospel Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow though they be red like crimson they shall be as wooll Isa 1.18 that is of however high a nature or degree they are they shall upon Repentance and Amendment be done away and forgiven No Sin is too great for the infinite Mercy of God to forgive and the infinite Merit of Christs Blood to atone nor is any excepted in the Covenant of Grace which God has made with Mankind wherein he promises universally to be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and iniquities he will remember no more Heb. 8.11 Jer. 31.34 without any bar or reserve to any Sin of what nature or aggravation soever I shall therefore Examine and Answer those places of Scripture which seem to give any countenance to the other severe and cruel Doctrine as to Sins of Apostacy after Baptism or upon Relapse and then largely consider the Nature of the Sin against the Holy Ghost and how or whether that is unpardonable so as to free all honest Minds from any trouble about it SECT I. Of Apostacy Sins after Baptism Vpon Relapse FIrst then as to those places of the Hebrews which are brought as the ground of the Novatian Doctrine for the irremissibleness of wilful Sins committed after Baptism they do not belong to any Sins of a Christian whilst he continues such but to one renouncing Christianity and wholly Apostatizing from it even after he has professed it and had miraculous evidence and conviction of it They who were enlightened or Baptized 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and have tasted of the Heavenly gift have been sensible of the Benefits of Baptism and the Priviledges of Christianity and been made partakers of the Holy Ghost have further had those miraculous and extraordinary Gifts of the Holy Ghost conferred upon them which new Baptized Persons then very often had and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come have had a sense of the excellency of the Gospel and the Christian Revelation and those powerful and great Miracles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which accompanied the dispensation thereof and the times of the Messiah or that have been duly affected with the powerful Considerations of Eternity and another World which are the great things their Religion sets before them if such as these shall like Julian afterwards or the Gnosticks then fall away from all this and apostatize from their Faith and Religion by the Fears of Persecution or the Love of this World it is impossible to renew them again to Repentance seeing this their revolt implyes no less than the crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh and putting him to open shame i. e. the condemning of Christ as a Malefactor and Impostor and so joyning and consenting with the Jews in Crucifying him as such and bringing an open reproach and discredit upon him as if he were a false Prophet and that upon Tryal and Experience they found his Religion to be false and therefore forsook it This Apostacy and renouncing the whole Religion of Christ is meant also by Sinning wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth Heb. 10.26 It is sinning in the same word and sense as the Apostate Angels did when they revolted from Heaven 2 Pet. 2.4 for in the next Verses it is called Treading under foot the Son of God i. e. Contemning him as a vile miscreant and as if he were not Risen from the Grave but lay dead there and so were to be trod upon and counting the Blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing as if it were shed justly and so were the Blood of a common Malefactor and doing despite unto the Spirit of Grace reproaching all the evidence by which the Holy Ghost confirmed the Truth of Christ and his Doctrine both in him and his Apostles This can be no less than a malicious apostacy and defection from Christianity in general and not only a wilful breach of any of its particular Laws And something like unto these is that Sin unto death in St. John 1 Ep. 5.16 that which deserved the utmost and severest censures as he which under Moses Law sinned presumptuously and was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did make void and throw off the Law was to dye without mercy Heb. 10.28 So under Christianity this presumptuous Sinner was to be Spiritually cut off from all the Benefits of Christian Communion and from the Prayers of the Faithful as we find they were by the Discipline of the Primitive Church This was so severe at first that they denyed all Peace and Absolution to such Apostates and Lapsi even in articulo Mortis at the point of Death and
Glutton and Wine-bibber a friend of Publicans and Sinners and to raise slanderous and false stories against any Mans Credit is one of the greatest though the commonest Sins but to proceed so far as to slander and reproach God this was accounted by one of the Heathens as bad or worse than to deny him but to represent the Holy and Blessed Spirit of God as an Apostate Angel as a Hellish Fiend and to reproach and scoff and calumniate whatever he does for the good and salvation of Mankind as the work and intrigue of the Devil This is such an horrid Sin that our Saviour says it should not be forgiven but bring certain Judgment upon them I come now to inquire how and upon what account it is Unpardonable which is the greatest difficulty about it Now though no Sin in its own Nature be unpardonable because none so great but that the infinite Mercy and Goodness of God does still exceed it and none is exempted from that General and Gracious Promise of Pardon which he hath made to Mankind and none has so much Guilt in it but that the Blood of Christ and Merit of his Sacrifice is able to atone and expiate for it and none does so far corrupt and deprave the Mind but that the Grace of God can restore and amend it yet a Sin may however be unpardonable by reason of some circumstances attending it and chiefly upon these three accounts 1. As not being Repented of for so every wilful Sin is unpardonable For though the Gospel proposes Mercy and Pardon to every Sin and Sinner without exception yet 't is upon this never failing condition of Repentance and Amendment without which we shall as certainly perish as if there had been no place for Mercy at all but we had stood under an irreversible decree of Condemnation for the first Sin we had committed The Covenant of Grace is made upon that Condition on our part which if we fail of we shall as certainly lose the benefit of it as if there had been no such Covenant made 2. That Sin is also unpardonable by the standing terms of the Divine Mercy which is not curable by all the ordinary means of the Divine Grace but resists and baffles all those remedies which can be used to that purpose As a Disease is uncurable when it is too strong for all the remedies that can be used against it so is a Sin unpardonable when it is too hard for all the means whatsoever that are proper to amend it As when a Man will be an Infidel and disobedient to God when he sees plain Miracles before his face and will not be convinced by all these which are the best and only means to that purpose when he will still be obstinate and harden himself against the highest evidence that is possible as Pharaoh did when he could not but confess that the Miracles were done by the Finger of God and yet would not hearken unto him or as the Pharisees and some of the Jews who would not be perswaded to Christianity by all the visible Wonders and extraordinary Miracles wrought by Christ and his Apostles What was there more to be done to satisfie those Men and how could any thing that God and the Divine Power was able to do convince them of their Infidelity if this would not And so now when all the considerations and all the credible evidences of Religion will not work upon a Man nor perswade him to a good Life when he resists all the means of Grace that God has appointed he then resists the last and utmost remedy that should do him good and so is necessarily in a hopeless uncurable state and condition 3. That Sin is unpardonable which provokes God to withdraw his Spirit and all the influences of the Divine Grace and to give them up to a spirit of slumber and a reprobate sense and hardness of Heart as he is sometimes said to do if not for one Sin yet for a great many obstinately and irreclaimably continued in And now let us examine the Sin against the Holy Ghost by these 3 ways 1. Can it be said to be unpardonable because unrepented of It seemeth not upon this account because it is probable that many of those who were guilty of it did afterwards Repent and turn Christians Among the many numerous Proselytes to Christianity in the time of our Saviour and especially of the Apostles it cannot be proved or thought that there were not some of those made Converts that had fall'n into it and Christ when he prayed for his Enemies and for his Crucifiers most earnestly entreated his Father to forgive them all without any exception Luke 23.24 by which he had plainly some hopes of their Repentance and Amendment and if he had not it would have been in vain to have used so many means as he did afterwards to that purpose besides that he intimates not the least word to them of their Impenitence nor was that to be said of them till the last this would not sufficiently distinguish this Sin from any other great and wilful one for any such unrepented of and that by a particular Repentance is unpardonable as well as this against the Holy Ghost unless we will venture to say what we have no sufficient warrant for and therefore is very bold and especially when 't is a kind of limiting the Grace and Mercy of God that Men could never Repent of this as they can of all others but that God who hath opened a door of Mercy and Repentance in all other cases hath absolutely shut it in this so that they shall never be able nor willing to enter in 2. Is it unpardonable upon the second account as it was not curable by any means that God had appointed and thought fit to use to that purpose This it seems not to be neither because God had not yet made use of all the means that he intended for the Conversion of the Jews and the Scribes and Pharisees Our Saviour indeed had done a great many Miracles to testifie his Divine Power but still there were a great many more which remained behind and which he had not yet performed If we look into the Gospel of St. Matthew and St. Mark and observe the time when our Saviour had his discourse of this Sin we shall find he wrought many very considerable Miracles after that and what was the design of all them but to perswade those to believe in him and to embrace Christianity who were not perswaded so to do by his former ones And there remained another Motive behind which was an evidence even beyond all and which was such an Argument to convince the Jewish Infidelity as did outdo almost all the other Miracles of our Saviour and that was his Resurrection from the Dead This was the great and irresistible proof for the Truth of Christ and his Religion and of this especially the Apostles were to be witnesses to all the World as being the
again unto repentance seeing they crucifie to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame And again Heb. 10.26 For if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin The Sin that is meant in both these places is most probably the Apostatizing from and renouncing of Christianity which the Christians were then in great danger of in those times of Danger and Persecution and therefore the Apostles had all reason to represent it as the most hazardous and guilty and to let them know that after they had once fallen from their Baptism they could not be renewed by another Baptism and after they had rejected the Sacrifice of Christ there was no other Sacrifice to be expected to be offered for their Sins nor was Christ to dye more than once This was indeed a very horrid Sin and to those especially who had probably had extraordinary Gifts communicated to them as the Phrases there used seem to denote These might well be charged with those tremendous expressions ver 29. That they had trodden under foot the Son of God and counted the blood of the covenant wherewith they were sanctified an unholy thing and done despite unto the Spirit of Grace But yet the Primitive Church how severe soever it was at first to the Lapsi in denying them Communion after they had Apostatized yet it was the same also to many other Sins to whom it utterly denyed the Communion of the Church for ever as well as to Apostacy though the Persons were never so penitent who committed them And whilst they kept to this most severe Discipline which they were forced afterwards to abate yet they did not peremptorily sentence those penitent Apostates nor any others to certain Perdition but left them to the Mercy of God for which they would not engage to be Sponsors or Sureties as not being able to ascertain them of it and this is the most I think of what St. John sayes of the sin unto death I do not say that we shall pray for it 1 John 5.16 i. e. we cannot have such an assurance that God will hear the Prayers for that as for other Sins and therefore we cannot so confidently encourage Men to pray for it tho' he does not at all forbid them to do it This Sin unto death was very likely also to be Apostacy from Christianity to the Idolatry of the Gnosticks or the Gentiles and that was certainly a very deadly Sin and such as was not to have the benefit of the Prayers of the Church but to say that this would never be Pardoned after St. Peters denyal of his Master was and after the Church did frequently admit the Lapsi at least to Lay-Communion I think we ought to have a more plain and manifest Revelation of the Will of God in that matter than we have from that difficult place However from these three places which come the nearest to this Sin though there is no mention of it in any of them it appears that either other Sins as well as that particular one of the Pharisees may be represented unpardonable or else that those expressions which are used to set out the guilt of those Sins are yet to be mollified and abated But Lastly The Evangelical Covenant of Pardon and Forgiveness being exprest in such general and large terms as extend universally to all manner of Sins without any exception whatsoever and there being no one Sin whatever exempted out of that in the Charter it self or in the Form of Absolution prescribed by Christ Matth. 16.29 John 20.23 they think it is more agreeable to say that no one particular Sin how great soever is unpardonable by the Gospel and that this will be a greater force and violence to those many Promises of the Gospel than to mitigate the severity of those expressions which seem to speak otherwise of some Sins and particularly of that against the Holy Ghost And therefore to come to a resolution in this matter that may be safe and satisfying I shall do it very briefly in two particulars 1. I say That either for those Reasons the Expression here may be mollified and not taken in its literal and rigorous sense but so as to import the great guilt of the Sin and difficulty of its Pardon but not the utter impossibility Or else 2. That there were some particular circumstances in that Sin of the Pharisees which make it a Sin proper to them in those times and such as Christians are not now in any possible danger of committing for though we have sufficient Reasons to believe the truth of Christianity upon the account of the Miracles done by our Saviour and we have an unquestioned assurance of the truth of those from undoubted History and universal Testimony and Tradition yet we cannot have that ocular evidence and visible demonstration of them that the Jews and Pharisees had and therefore if any of the Jews in our dayes who have swallowed many of them this blasphemous account of Christ and his Miracles that he did them all by the Power of Magick which he learned in Egypt if they do now vent this horrid Calumny yet I think they are not so perfectly Criminal nor is this so high a degree of villany in them as it was in their Fore-fathers who saw the very Miracles done before their faces which is the highest evidence that can be And unless the Person be in all those circumstances that they were which would make him a great deal more inexcusable I question whether he can be charged with this Sin And therefore as a Conclusion from the whole and as the most useful remark from this Subject I shall advise these two things 1. That no Sinner be discouraged from Leaving his Sins howsoever great nor from Hopes of the Divine Mercy upon any ungrounded Fears that he is fallen into this Sin and so is in a hopeless irrecoverable unpardonable state By what has been said it appears that no one now has reason to do this and it is certainly the greatest design of the Gospel and our Saviours coming into the World to perswade Mankind that were sunk into the saddest Sins and Wickedness to Repent and Forsake all their Evil wayes And there is no such means to encourage to this as to assure them of the Divine Mercy and the certain Forgiveness of all of them if they do 'T is this is the way to bring Men in to their Duty and Allegiance when their Governour proclaims an universal Act of Grace for what is past whereas the being cut off from all such hopes makes them go on and grow more desperate and 't is by this Goodness and Mercy of God held forth to all Sinners and so fully displayed in the Gospel and the Death of Christ that we are led to Repentance and therefore it ought by no means to be lessened or diminished unless we would make God less Good than he
down his Government of the World if he were merciful contrary to those and should not so far regard his own Honour and assert his Power and Authority and Justifie the goodness of his Laws as to revenge all open affronts against them and punish all great and notorious and habitual Sinners notwithstanding all their Prayers and Entreaties to the contrary If the cryes and lamentations of a dying Sinner should make God forgive him out of meer pity and tenderness though he had broke all the Laws of Heaven in his life and lived in direct opposition against them and never took any care to keep them this must alter the Rule of God's Government the Rule of the Gospel and the Rule of his last Judgment and he must for his sake break and act contrary to all those If notwithstanding those Gods Pity and Mercy to a poor Wretch could suffer or incline him to do this we might then as reasonably hope that this his pity might reach even to the damned in Hell their Case is very pitiable and very lamentable as well as the others and their cryes and howlings and lamentations are very loud and importunate but they are unreasonable and too late and therefore God is deaf to them one would think if Pity could so over-rule Justice as to prevail with it to dispense with the severe and righteous Rules lay'd down by the great God it would put out the flames of Hell or let the tears and cryes of the damned quench those dreadful and Everlasting burnings and not suffer so many poor and miserable Creatures to lye tortured for ever in the utmost Extremity but God's Justice and Judgment is as deep and bottomless as Hell it self and though we cannot search into all the reasons of it yet we know by his word that it shall take place and be duely executed notwithstanding his own greatest Pity and Mercy or his Creatures greatest Cryes and Lamentations A groundless presumption of God's Mercy and Pity hath ruined many Souls The Gospel declares the highest instances and degrees of it in the Redemption of the World by Jesus Christ and in pardoning our sins upon our Repentance and to show this required a wonderful Method and most Stupendous Expedient thus to find out a way to reconcile Gods Justice and Mercy together by the Sacrifice of Christ now this utmost Grace and Mercy of Heaven neither does nor could go farther than past Sins upon Repentance and Amendment Obedience and a good Life afterwards to expect any Mercy from God beyond this beyond the Gospel and the Rules and measures of Mercy there layd down is the most vain and groundless and presumptuous thing i' the World and so 't is for a dying unprepared Sinner to think he can do any thing then by which he may hope to prevail with Christ and to enter into Heaven For alass what can he then do He can use strong Crying and Tears and Prayers to God so did the Virgins and so may the Damned but alass for what can he pray That God would save him without Obedience and a good Life which he has declared he never will that he would not now punish him for a wicked and impenitent and disobedient life which he assuredly will do that he may not now be shut out when the Bridegroom is coming though he is no way prepared for it and has no Oyle in his Lamp no vertuous habits and Dispositions of mind to fit him to go in and now 't is too late to get them all on a sudden and in vain to expect to borrow this Oyl of others or to have it given by the Bridegroom himself would he pray now to God to give him Grace when he has despised and rejected it all his Life would he now have it grow up into vertuous habits and the frults of Obedience and a good life all on a sudden would he now become a new Man and a new Creature in a few hours and from a wicked Man all his life become a good one in a few days He may almost as well hope that God should make him young again now he is old and turn his old and weak and dying Body into a young and lusty and healthful one and work those mighty Miracles upon his Body as well as his Mind by his Prayers God can do the one by an Almighty Irresistible power as well as the other if he pleases but 't is very vain and groundless to depend upon the utmost of what God's power is able to do in any thing and therefore that is never to be brought in for or against any thing of this Nature The only question is not what God but what such a wicked Man and dying Sinner can then do can he have all his old habits of vice and wickedness rooted out and his Nature changed and a vertuous and holy disposition of mind planted in their stead Can that lust or sinful Inclination which was so hard to be conquered before that he pretended it was impossible for him almost to leave it can this now be so soon and so easily overcome All those Corruptions and Diseases of Soul which have been so long upon him that they are become chronical and habitual and which were before incurable by all the means of Grace and methods of Providence by all the advices and exhortations of his own Friends and God's Ministers are these now to be perfectly got off and cured on a sudden and the Mind restored to Soundness and Holyness Is that now to be done so easily and so quickly which he found so hard to do all his life and which is one of the hardest and most difficult things in the World to make a Bad Man a Good one No this is Unnatural and Impossible and cannot be in the Nature of the thing but a Man may be very sorrowful and heartily troubled that he was not so and have great trouble and remorse of Mind for his sins and so be heartily penitent for them This is all he can be and he cannot well be otherwise if he be in his Senses and hath the use of his Reason and sees such Terrible danger before him as is now unavoidable he must be greatly troubled that he hath brought himself to that that is that he must suffer for his Sin for he was never troubled at the Sin before nor would be now but like it and live in it still if that were all but he cannot but be concerned at the dreadful punishment of it and he must be very hardy indeed if he go not thus Shivering and Contrite and Penitent as they call it to his Execution this is only a Natural abhorring of pain or what is evil to us from a principle of Self-preservation not an abhorrence of Sin from Choice and Reason and free apprehension of Mind for all this is from a force and violence offered to the mind by a sense of present danger and from that Fear Terrour and Confusion that a
much there is of guilt and whatever abatements there are in our willing it by the Minds not knowing or not thinking of it or being unawares ingaged in it and not having the full use of its powers of choice or understanding so much there is of excuse for it and so far its circumstances make it pardonable by a good God who will not condemn us for any thing we cannot help and which it was not in our power to avoid and all Sins of Infirmity are such some way or other for who can help being ignorant and mistaken after he has used the best wayes he can to inform himself of his Duty and if he then commit a Sin ignorantly and through the meer error and weakness of his Understanding God will forgive it him So who can be alwayes so much upon his guard and have his thoughts so much about him as not to say a rash and unfit word or do a some way blameable action or not have some inward motions and sensual desires rising up in his Mind contrary to strict Reason and Religion If God should for every one of these enter into Judgment with us or condemn us no Man could be saved and no Flesh living could be justified But he who considers our frame and knows that we are but dust weak imperfect blind ignorant inconsiderate heedless Creatures made up of Sensual Passions Appetites and Inclinations that are a part of our Nature he will deal very graciously and favourably with us and not punish us for any unavoidable weaknesses of our Nature but only for the wilful faults and presumptuous miscarriages that we wittingly and willingly commit against him and his Laws God alone can perfectly judge and exactly distinguish between all the faults of weakness and wilfulness and tell what degrees of voluntary and involuntary and so of blame and guilt are in them he knoweth our Hearts and searcheth our Reins and can better judge of our Actions and the secret springs of them than our selves In great and notorious cases every Mans Conscience can judge for him but God is greater than our Consciences and knoweth all things and if we sincerely avoid every wilful and great and notorious Sin and would not for any Temptation in the World commit it if as the Psalmist sayes We be upright and innocent from the great transgression 't is to be hoped all our other Sins and Miscarriages are Sins of pardonable Weakness and excusable Infirmity that do no way endanger our good State and whatever wilful Sins we have been guilty of through the whole course of our Lives our having left them and truly Repented of them as I have directed frees us from all the dangers of them and puts us into the Blessed State of Pardon and Forgiveness notwithstanding the lesser Sins of Frailty and Infirmity which we cannot live wholly without SECT III. The Benefits of Repentance or the happiness of being in such a good state THE Effects and Benefits of true Repentance such as I have described and such as I have given the sure Marks and Criteria of are Pardon and Forgiveness which are very great things and very comfortable words to a poor Sinner to whom nothing can be said more reviving than those few words which Christ pronounced to the Paralytick Matth. 9.2 and which he pronounces by the Gospel to every true Penitent Son be of good chear thy sins be forgiven thee these are words as powerful and effectual as tose of Lazarus come forth and let there be light they will raise a drooping dead Soul out of the Grave and restore Life and Comfort to him they will make light spring out of darkness and dispel the doleful black State he was in and make lightsome joy and gladness arise in his Soul nothing can be said so chearing and refreshing so ravishing and transporting to him unless those other words which will follow upon it Go ye blessed receive the Kingdom prepared for you 't is a very blessed and a very happy state at present next to Heaven it self to have our sins pardoned and forgiven and to be freed from that miserable and wretched state into which they put us if we are but duly sensible of it as we ought to be How would a Criminal that was before condemned and lay under the Sentence of Death be affected do we think and his Spirit cheared and his Heart leap within him and a new Life be put into him when a Pardon is brought him from his Prince and he is discharged from his condemned state and took off from the Cart or the Ladder A Thousand times more reason has a poor Sinner to be raised and comforted when by the Mercy of God and the Love of Christ his past sins and guilt are taken away upon his true and sincere Repentance The Scripture has pronounced such an one blessed in an especial manner by the Mouth of David Psal 32.1 Blessed is the Man whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered and St. Paul could not find out any thing better to describe the blessedness of a Christian by the Gospel then by borrowing the same words as he tells us of David Rom. 4.6 the Holy Ghost inspiring both of them with the same Words and Idea's of Blessedness to Sinners Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin I shall show the Blessedness of this State and Condition which Repentance puts a Sinner into upon these accounts 1. As it frees him from the present miserable state he was in by reason of his Sins 2. As he is delivered thereby from the fears of another World and the more dreadful dangers hereafter 3. As he is hereby reconciled to God and restored to his favour who was angry and displeased with him before First as it frees him from the present miserable state he was in by reason of his Sins Nothing is so painful and uneasie so perplexing and tormenting as guilt when it lies heavy upon a Mans Mind and he has a quick sense and apprehension of it this is to be stung with Scorpions to be whipt with Snakes to have burning Torches and all the conceived instruments of torture applyed to us There is no torment so great as a Mans Conscience struck with the horrors of its own guilt haunted with its own fears as so many Furies or evil Spirits following and disturbing it wherever it goes when it has the image of its own foul actions always before it and imagines a Divine Judgment and Nemesis always behind it when the very chattering of the Birds speaks its crimes to it as in a known story and the hand-writing upon the wall makes it tremble and be amazed and its own inward Consciousness makes it hear and see and read its sad doom and sentence in all places and on all occasions what a lamentable condition must a Man be in when he lies thus under the load
laughs at them sometimes and would seem in his highest mirth to have courage enough to make a jest of them to others yet he fears them in good earnest and trembles at the thoughts of them when he is alone and when Death brings them nearer to him he is scared and terrified and has sufficient proof of their Reality in his own mind What a wretched and miserable Condition is he then in when the terrors of Death and the greater terrours of Hell are set before him when all about him is horror and misery and the blackness of darkness when he has nothing to look back upon but the bitter memory of his past sins and no prospect before him but the unknown and unconceivable torments of another World when Gods Anger lyes heavy upon him and sinks him into the deepest gulph of despair and the Grave and the bottomless pit are ready to swallow him up and to devour him both Soul and Body what an instance of Misery is here what a Picture of Hell nay what a real and sensible Hell is there then before us Who that stands by the Bed of such a dying Wretch and draws the Curtains and sees the Agonies and hears the doleful expressions of such a miserable Creature would not be deeply affected with such a sad state as he sees a Man put into by sin and impenitence Who would not then think Vertue and Religion very comfortable and very desirable things and much to be preferred to sinful looseness and extravagance Who would not then give all the World either that he had not sin'd or that he had Repented in time and so not brought himself into that remediless state of present and future torment Repentance if it be true and sincere will prevent a Sinners coming to this which will otherwise certainly be his Portion and he can never escape it in this World if he be not stupid but to be sure not in the next Now who that knows he must dye in a little time and that then at furthest this will be his case if he go on in his sins and be not timely brought off from them would ever madly continue in them and not break them off by Repentance when he is all the while exposed to this dreadful danger and lyes open to the fears and miseries of another World How comfortable is it to be delivered from those and to live in such a state that a Man has no reason to be afraid of Death nor to be scared with the thoughts of another World But whenever it comes he can welcome it chearfully or at least submit to it patiently without horror and distraction and have reasonable and well-grounded hopes that it shall be well with him hereafter full assurance he may never have without all manner of fears but he will have chearful and rational hopes according to the certainty and evidence of his Repentance and the sincerity of his Vertue and Obedience such a conditional assurance every one has by a Faith truly Divine that if he thus repents he shall be saved this is founded on a proposition that is Divinely revealed and so is matter of Faith but that I have so repented is not matter of Faith but only of private Judgment and Opinion of my self but I have no reason to doubt or be afraid if I know upon examining my self that I have forsaken every wilful sin and have left the ill course of life I was in and would not for any profit or pleasure commit a wilful Sin though I were never so much tempted to it and it were never so much in my power and that I have thus endeavoured to live and to do my Duty sincerely to God and Man though with great imperfections and infirmities still upon me this will give us a Rational and a Moral assurance of our Salvation which is all we can have without a particular Revelation how will this cheer and support a Man when he comes to dye how will it take out the sting and allay the bitterness of Death in great measure and be the best Cordial to keep up his Spirits in his last Agonies and Extremities being conscious to himself of his own sincerity and his conscience not condemning him as to any wilful Sin He will have confidence towards God and can assure his heart before him 1 John 3.19 He can then safely trust and rely upon the Mercy of God in and thorough Christ for the pardon of all his sins because he has truely and in time repented of them and 't is not a mere presumptuous and ungrounded confidenee which like the hope of the hypocrite shall perish Job 8.13 but he has a sure Title to it by the Gospel and the spirit of God beareth witness with his spirit and by the joynt testimony of that and his Conscience agreeing with the Rules and Measures of the Gospel for otherwise 't is but deceit and delusion he hath great inward comfort and chearful hopes of Heaven and hath no reason to fear but it shall be well with him in another world 'T is very happy to live in such a state as this where we are provided against not only all the evils of this World and the worst that can happen to us here but against Death and all the evils of another and may chearfully enjoy the blessings of Providence at present and rejoyce in the hopes of a much greater happiness hereafter so that we may as the wise Man says Eat our bread with joy and drink our wine with a merry heart for God now accepteth our works Eccles 9.7 but a state of sin and impenitence is a dreadful and a hazardous state exposed to the Terrors of Death and the amazing Evils of another World so that if a Man consider'd it as he ought he could not enjoy himself one moment nor would ever live under the fears and dangers of it for all the World and what if he thinks not of it which is all the relief he has against it Yet it is never the less in it self nor never the farther from him but though he is now never so stupid or in the deepest Lethargie yet Death and Hell will awaken him or however the flames there may be ready to catch hold of him while he is asleep and in the most sensless state 3. Repentance puts us into a very blessed and happy state as it reconciles us to God and restores us to his favour who was before angry and displeased with us We are enemies to God by our wicked works and alienated from him Coloss 1.21 Our iniquities have separated between us and our God and our sins have hid his face from us Isa 59.2 'T is they make the only breach and separation between God and his Creatures and provoke him who is Love and Goodness to put on Wrath and Anger and become even a consuming fire so that his anger is said to be kindled against sinners and wax hot against them and he poureth
new and holy Life and be available to his true Conversion and Repentance and I believe this is Gods usual way by which he begins to effect this upon most Sinners by thus bringing them to some serious thinking and considering It is very great Mercy when God thus checks them in their career and calls to them by the loud voice of his Judgments and thus as he generally does puts the first stop to them and makes them bethink themselves and consider but then this method must not only awaken but keep their eyes open and make them see and consider those other Thoughts and Reasons which are the more proper seminal Principles that will be more likely to produce and beget this true Repentance Such as are 2. In the second place a serious reflection and thorough conviction of the Evil that is in Sin and of the real Good of Vertue as the only thing which can make us truly happy for till Men have brought themselves to be fully perswaded and convinced of this and to believe it as firmly as they do any truth in Mathematicks or any other Science they will never be brought truly to Repent that is to dislike and hate and renounce the one and heartily to love and persue and embrace the other for Men will still love their Sins and hanker after them and be ready to comply and close with them upon every occasion if they only fall out with them sometimes as Lovers do with what they like and admire and tho' there may be some bickerings between them and some penitential passions and resentments now and then yet they may still have their Heart if they do not upon wise observations and thorough convictions believe them to be enemies to their Welfare and Happiness to the comfort of their Lives here and their Eternal Salvation hereafter and that they get nothing by them but poor and empty and sickly pleasures but that they bring substantial misery and bitter remorse and anguish of Mind and a thousand mischiefs and inconveniences along with them at present besides the terrible hazards and dangers of another World so that they are by no means to be loved or chosen if we love our selves or choose our own Happiness For we must bring it to this if we would be steddy and certain to the first Principles of Self-preservation and a desire of our own Happiness which lyes at the root of our Nature and what we shall alwayes act upon if we rightly understand it and do not grosly err and mistake about it and a few wise observations and a little sober thinking and considering will easily satisfie us and fully convince us that Vice is the certain cause of misery to us and that Vertue is the only way to be truly easie and happy The Sinner will be convinced of this by his own experience when he reflects upon his past follies and sees how little he has got by his Sins but shame and sorrow and trouble of Mind perhaps a sickly and diseased Body and a wasted Estate and wretched Beggery and every thing that shall make him miserable in this World before he goes to the greater misery of another For do we not dayly see this how one Man brings himself by his Sins to a morsel of bread how he shipwrecks his Fortunes as well as his Conscience by Luxury and Prodigality another consumes his Body as well as his Estate by Debauchery Lust and Intemperance by these they sin as the Apostle remarks against their own Bodies as well as against their Souls they make them bear the scars and marks of their Sins upon them and become Martyrs in the Devils service and endure often more torture of Body for their Sins than other Martyrs have done for their Religion sacrifice their Lives to them and by living too fast as they call it bring an untimely death upon themselves and are in so much hast sometimes to dye that their Bodies often rot before they come into their graves If these mischiefs do not follow all Sins yet some others do and the greatest of all is inseparable from them which is torment and anguish of Conscience and pain and uneasiness of Mind which every Man feels unless his Conscience be stupified and mortified which is a worse state than the other upon the commission of any great Sin and this is ten times greater than any fancied pleasure in it This is a sting a wound a prick upon the most tender part of a Mans Soul a dart struck through his Liver a Worm gnawing upon his Vitals nothing is so close and so cutting a pain and misery as a Man 's own ill Conscience when it is let loose upon him and like a Fury falls upon him with its utmost rage lashes him with its snaky whips and burns him with its fiery torches 't is then a Devil let loose and a Hell kindled within his own bosom They who have felt but a little of it know it is more exquisite pain than any belongs to the Body and what is it then to endure this for ever and lye under that and the further anger of God to all Eternity Oh madness and folly that wants a name that will do this for any Sin whatever Oh the dreadful Evil of Sin that brings all this and so many other mischiefs upon us But 3. Vertue on the contrary has a thousand Comforts Blessings and Goods belonging to it which should make us love it as we do our selves and choose it as heartily and firmly as we do our own Happiness When we rightly understand and consider it we shall find Reason to do so that neither disturbs our Mind nor diseases our Body nor squanders away our Estate nor brings any reproach and discredit along with it as Vice generally does and it takes away no real Good or true Pleasure or proper Enjoyment from us but it allowes us all that we can desire or that our Nature was made for within the due bounds and limits of our Duty and within those we may enjoy as much Vertuously and Innocently as the greatest Liberty and Debauchery can afford the Sinner Vertue does not destroy our Pleasures but refines and purifies them and so makes them sweeter and better and draws them off from the filthiness and sediment and bitterness that lyes alwayes at the bottom of all sinful Pleasures and Enjoyments No Man ever repented of his Vertues or was sorry that he had done a good Action but he finds great comfort and satisfaction within himself when he reflects upon it and it is a prop and stay to his Mind and he rests securely upon it and is chearful confident and erect under all accidents and all dangers and difficulties whatsoever His Heart standeth right and approveth it self to God and to his own thoughts having no ill designs no base and mean ends and purposes but such only as are good and vertuous and this gives him great peace firmness of Mind and bravery of Spirit and
an irresistible force and impulse which shall do all this in an instant and convert a Sinner in a moment No this must be done gradually and successively by the bringing in of other thoughts dispositions inclinations and practices by a kindly and gentle influence upon our Minds the Spirit descending like rain or shedding its Vertue like dew upon our Hearts and so bringing forth the fruits of Repentance in us not like a violent stream or a mighty torrent bearing down all immediately before it The Spirit of God which is compared in Scripture to the winds blowing where we see the effects though we discern not the cause does not by a sudden gust like a hurricane convert a Sinner and turn him from his Sins in such a manner as a tree is torn up by the roots with a violent tempest but by a fresh and gentle gale it carries the Sinner from Vice to Vertue by filling his Mind with new thoughts and strongly moving and determining him the right way and secretly inclining his Mind to choose and his Understanding to see and consider what is his true Interest and Happiness and by an inward energy and vertue as a principle of Life acts secretly and undiscernably upon all our Faculties changing our thoughts desires and affections and working upon our Minds though in a way agreeable to our Rational Faculties yet by a Power superiour and superadded to them And now let every Sinner consider what great Motives and Encouragements and so what Obligations he hath to Repent by the Gospel how powerfully and how endearingly by Motives both of Love and Fear Christ doth there call Sinners to Repentance It was his great work and for this purpose he came into the World to recover lost and undone Mankind and to rescue them from that state of Sin and Misery they were in and to restore them to a state of Vertue and Happiness This was a design worthy Christs coming into the World and all the mysterious dispensation of Christianity 7. And this is of such absolute necessity and importance to us that 't is impossible we can otherwise escape Misery and not perish inevitably God when he would show the greatest Mercy and Kindness to us in the World and demonstrate his Love to us in the highest manner as he hath done by the Gospel yet hath there told us that except we repent we shall all certainly perish Luke 13.5 This is the perpetual and indispensable condition upon which alone we must expect any benefit by Christ and the Gospel this is as low as God can go with us Perfect and uninterrupted Obedience all our lives is his due and when we have broken that and he compounds with us and accepts of Partial and Renewed Obedience instead of Entire i. e. of Repentance and returning to our Duty instead of keeping alwayes to it this is the utmost favour can be expected from him or that he can grant to us and Repentance is the only way by which it is possible for a Sinner to escape Wrath and Damnation This I shall a little clear and make out and then perswade to this Duty of Repentance from the absolute necessity of it 1. Then 't is this alone can consist with the Wisdom and Honour of God as he is Governour of the World God as he is a Being of Infinite Goodness and Compassion to his Creatures so he is a very Wise and Prudent Governour of the World and therefore though like a merciful Prince out of the Goodness of his Nature and the tender Inclinations he has for all his Subjects he is ready to shew all Mercy and Clemency to those that have offended him yet if he should do this too easily without any security of their good behaviour for the future or any care and provision for their better Obedience it would not a little reflect upon the Wisdom of his Government and represent him as too soft and easie a Being and render his Authority in time cheap and contemptible It would not only loosen the reins of Government but be a letting them go out of his hands and throwing them upon the necks of his insolent and rebellious Vassals if without any tyes or obligations for the future or letting them know upon what conditions they should be capable of his favour and continue in it he should take off all the Punishment their past Crimes had deserved this would be to encourage them to commit new ones and give them just grounds to hope for an absolute and perpetual impunity Should God have granted by the Gospel or any other way such an Unconditional Charter of Mercy and Pardon this would have certainly destroyed that very Power by which he granted it and such a Privilege or Concession as it would greatly have reflected upon his Honour so it would have quite undermined his Authority it would have been a resigning up his Throne and a laying his Crown at the feet of his own insolent Rebels For what would have remain'd to him of Power to Govern or to Punish if he had done this If he had set out a standing Act of Grace and Mercy to all Sinners without any Condition or Proviso that they turn from their Wickedness which they had committed that they should come in and lay down all their Hostile Weapons and be Faithful and Loyal hereafter or else be utterly uncapable of any benefit of it Without this it had been rather a Dispensation or Indulgence to be Wicked than a wise Proclamation of Mercy to serve the true Ends and Interest of Government God indeed has with great Wisdom and Goodness found out such a temper in his Government and contrived such an expedient as shews the most admirable Wisdom and the most wonderful Mercy both together and that is for the sake and by the mediation of a Sacrifice to pardon and yet to punish the Sinner by the same way to give an instance of his Mercy and a remonstrance of his Justice and the design of all that is to show that though he is the most inclined to Mercy and Clemency yet he will never show it but in such a way as is consistent with the Honour and Wisdom of his Government He is willing to abate of his extream Right over his Creatures and to take off the edge and severity of his Laws so far as Prudence and the Wise Ends of Government will give leave but not so far as shall give any manner of encouragement to Disobedience and Wickedness and that would be unavoidable if he should ever grant a Pardon to wicked Men upon any other condition than turning away from their Wickedness 2. As 't is this alone can consist with the Honour and Wisdom of God as he is a wise Governour so nothing but this can render us acceptable to him as he is a truly Righteous and Holy Being If we consider God as such as a Being essentially holy so that this is not only his Perfection but his very Nature then
Mercy and judges himself as incapable of it as the damned in Hell when Gods Spirit has left him so that he can neither pray nor do any thing to relieve himself but lyes as a condemned Caitiff a Malefactor sentenced past all hopes of Pardon and only expecting Punishment and the last stroke of Vengeance this is a sad a deplorable condition which I have known many a Sinner in under a Wounded Spirit and had one great instance before me when I was writing this These Wounds are not felt indeed by many a Sinner in the heat of Blood in the career of his Lusts and the hot persuit of his Sins when in his high frolicks and jovial diversions he drowns the noise of his Conscience or lulls it asleep with charming Pleasures or full Cups or some unthinking madness but it will awake one time or other and like a sleeping Lyon when 't is roused up by some Judgment by some Sickness or Affliction it will fall terribly upon him with rage and fury and tear and consume him then all the wounds which sin gave it will bleed afresh and it will feel them afterwards unless they have been cured by a timely repentance if they have festered and gangrened and mortified the Soul for a time yet when it comes to it self it will feel them with unexpressible pain and anguish which nothing can asswage I mean when a Man has sin'd away his Life and Death and his Sins are set together before him and 't is hard to know which is the more terrible When the Sting of Death swelled up with Sin and Guilt strikes as deep into a Man's Conscience and wounds his Spirit as Death it self strikes into his Body with its fatal dart so that he suffers a double death at the same time and the Spiritual far more painful than the Bodily I take a Wounded Spirit here in the highest and most common sense and though when a Mans Spirit is dejected and sunk with any thing 't is very hard to bear it which may be the sense of the Wise Mans words in the forequoted place when the strength of a Mans Mind is lost which should support him under all his infirmities that he is subject to from without yet nothing does so sink it so wound and destroy it as Sin and Guilt especially when it is come to such a degree and to such a sad condition as we commonly mean by a Wounded Spirit i. e. a Mind deeply pierced with the sense of its own Guilt and of Gods Anger upon it This likewise admits of degrees and in some cases 't is a very happy thing for a Sinner and 't is to be sure alwayes a just Punishment I shall therefore in the Third place briefly consider what is the proper Cure and Remedy of such a wounded Spirit or troubled Mind for there is no Spiritual Illness but what is curable if we take it in time by Religion no Wound of Soul but what there is Balm for in Gilead in Christianity there is no Disease too great for our Heavenly Physician but what the Gospel has a proper and certain Remedy for if we duely and timely apply it A Man may tarry too long indeed and not use the Physick till it be too late till Death comes and puts an end to the time of Tryal and the time of Repentance and then a Wounded Spirit i. e. the extremest Sorrow for a Mans Sins the deepest Contrition of Soul for them cannot come up to true Gospel Repentance to which there is a certain promise of Pardon and Forgiveness for that is only upon turning to God and leaving all our Sins and leading a new Life and bringing forth the Fruits of Repentance by Obedience to the Gospel for the future which is a necessary condition by the terms of the Gospel which he cannot perform whom God cuts off before he can do it and therefore such an one must be left to the Infinite Mercy and Righteous Judgment of God to be dealt with by such measures as are not within the Covenant of Grace or the Terms of the Gospel for by those I cannot see any title he has to Pardon But in other Cases a Wounded Spirit may be the greatest Mercy and even the very beginning of Health or of a Cure to a Soul when God does not suffer a Man to go on senslesly in his Sins till he come to a seered Conscience and a reprobate Sense and to hardness of Heart and blindness of Mind but by some methods of his Grace and Providence alarums his Conscience and awakens his stupid Mind and brings his almost sensless and stupified Soul to some Spiritual sense of his condition Then his Soul will be wounded as Davids was when he reflects upon those Sins which he committed without consideration and he will be sore struck and smitten as every Penitent must at the remembrance of his evil wayes All Repentance is such a wounding of the Soul as makes its Heart bleed within it and its Blood and Spirits melt into Tears and Sorrow for what it has done 't is not such an easie thing as most men think it to be 't is such a Pain such a Wound to the Soul that the Pleasure of the greatest Sin is but a poor trifle to it and no man that rightly understood it would venture upon any Sin from the reserved hopes of it Repentance is a bitter Remedy made up of very strong and unpleasant ingredients and we must go through a long course to purge out the old Disease and take away the root of it so that before a wicked mind can be cured by it it must be cut and lanced and wounded and have very severe applications made to it The work of Regeneration or the New Birth cannot be wrought without many pangs or throwes nor does God ever almost bring a bad man to become a good one without some trouble and disorder of Mind There is a trouble of Mind indeed which is excessive and unreasonable for every Sinner ought in some measure to be troubled in Mind and he has not a due sense of his Sins if he is not but there is a trouble of Mind which takes away the hopes of Mercy and throwes Men into despair which is commonly called a Wounded Spirit and 't is so in the highest degree and whether there is any Remedy for that and what it is and what advice is to be given in such a case and what judgment to be made of it I shall briefly consider 1. Then this is often joyned with Melancholly of Body which is very hard to be cured and till it be so it is apt to darken the Mind and bring a cloud over the Spirits and to fill the Soul with very black Idea's and Imaginations and to hinder it from making true judgment of it self or its own actions and this is as pityable and ought as much to be remedied by Physick and Care as other Diseases of Body for I have known
us by our Baptisme he who may be supposed to have this inward Principle infused into him and stirring with his fears at the time of his Death yet for all that is but an Abortive Christian and hath neither the new Birth or Regeneration nor the Divine Life in him 4ly The great Prejudice against this Doctrine is this that 't is too severe and will tend to make us judge over-hardly of others and to throw dying Sinners into despair as being in an hopeless State by the Gospel and so hinder their Repentance at that time as being insufficient and ineffectual To which I answer That 't is no more severe than the Gospel is which shuts every wilful Sinner out of Heaven and pronounces Damnation upon every one that does not live a good Life at least after a bad one which is the true Notion of Repentance but we must make a new Gospel if we abate of this and come lower than is any way consistent with the Divine Wisdom and Government and with securing Vertue and Religion and not opening a wide door to Looseness and Licentiousness and encouraging Men in their Sins rather than bringing them off from them I believe indeed 't is more out of pity and tenderness than any good ground in Reason or Scripture that the other Doctrine has took place but we must not pervert the Gospel out of an unreasonable tenderness and by pretending to be more merciful than God is or has declared himself to be and 't is I doubt the greatest cruelty to our own and others Souls thus to deceive 'em into ruine by giving them hopes contrary to the Gospel and I account it the greatest charity to forwarne Men of their danger and to free them from such a fatal mistake It does not so much concern us to judge other Men and apply this Doctrine to them as to our selves God is their proper judge to whom we ought to leave them and to their own Master they shall stand or fall at the great day but 't is more dangerous to assume a sort of Power to dispense with the Laws of God by our pretended Charity and to give a relaxation to the rules of the Gospel and the conditions of Salvation out of undue Piety and in effect to blame and condemne God and think he deals more hardly with Sinners than he ought to do or then we our selves would do when he pronounces Damnation upon them for their bad Lives and will not save them for their dying Repentance out of this Principle of pity others have gone farther and denyed the Eternity of Hellish Torments and have thought it too hard that God should punish the sins of a short Life with never-ending pains and have therefore thought good in their great pity to release all the Damned and even the Devils themselves out of Hell within so many years but this is to understand the Measures and Reasons of the Divine Government better than God himself to prescribe new ones to him contrary to what he has lay'd down to set up a Court of Equity upon him in our thoughts and to correct the fixt Rules and declared Measures of his Justice and Mercy with some others of our own which surely is not to be allowed As to the driving Sinners into despair by this Doctrine this cannot be said of those who have time before 'em to repent and live better if they make use of it and nothing will more strongly excite them and more immediately put them upon this than the faithful and open telling them the truth as I have done and taking them off from all hopes and trust of a dying Repentance which has destroyed so many Souls As for the dying Sinner himself however I pity him I dare not give him hopes farther than I have warrant from God and Authority from the Gospel which no Minister can have to assure him of Pardon and Salvation from a mere late and Death-Bed Repentance He can only advise such an one to do all he can at that time which may help if not wholly to remit his punishment yet in some measure to abate and mitigate it which is a very great thing and commend him to the Extraordinary and Uncovenanted Mercy of God which is not limited by any thing but the recitude of his own Nature to which we must leave some great Cases not knowing what to judge of them our selves but as to the ordinary and covenanted Mercy of God which he himself has limited and which ought not be stretcht or extended any more than narrowed or confined to any other bounds than those of the Gospel such a Repentance has no title to it by any promise there that I know of and therefore I would not for all the world venture my Soul upon it nor would have any Man else to do so for besides all other hazards of a sudden Death and the like that attend such a Repentance 't is venturing whether God will not break the Rules and Measures of the Gospel or at least abate them and be more merciful than he has there promised to be which no Man has any reason to expect he should be but rather a great deal to question whether he can be Let none of us therefore trust to such a Late and Death-Bed Repentance which will expose us not only to infinite danger but to inevitable and certain ruine nor let us believe any such Doctrine which has no foundation either from the Thief on the Cross or from any thing else in Scripture to be relyed on but however severe the other Doctrine be let us consider it is true as I shall fully prove it is and I know no Mischief of its severiry but this which is the plain consequence of it that we must not delay our Repentance but take care to live a good life if we hope to go to Heaven SECT III. The Invalidity of a Death-Bed Repentance shown from the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins HAving Examined and Answered the Pleas and Pretences on behalf of a Death-Bed Repentance I shall show its Invalidity and Insufficiency by such plain and positive Proofs as shall take away that common error and fatal mistake on the other side and fully confirm and establish my Opinion against it The first whereof shall be that Excellent Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins Matth. 25. especially the latter part of it at the 10 11 12. verses for I shall not represent it entire in all the parts but only what is more full and home to my purpose in relation to the foolish Virgins of whom it is said That while they went to buy the bridegroom came and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage and the door was shut afterwards came also the other Virgins saying Lord Lord open to us but he answered and said verily I know you not Parables were an Eastern and Jewish way of instruction very frequently used by their wisemen and so made customary